This Is What Friends Are For
by Bookworm1756
Summary: "You guys are the best friends I've ever had," Leo said. "But even now… you guys are together… and I'm sort of the third wheel…" "We're sorry if we act like that, Leo," Piper said. "And if there's anything we can do to help with the Argo II, we'll try. Because that is what friends are for." Oneshot


**Disclaimer: (checks in mirror) I'm not Rick. Deals with it.**

**This idea came to me at ten o'clock one night, and I spent until midnight writing it. Just a short oneshot I thought up. ENJOY!**

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Piper McLean and Jason Grace wandered through the forest, back-to-back, weapons ready to fight. Piper shifted her grip on her dagger Katoptris, and Jason held Hera's new weapon for him out in front, waiting to strike at any unexpected monster who dared to approach the duo.

"Jason?" called Piper's voice. Jason had to admire how brave she sounded.

"I know, Piper," Jason replied. He sighed, thinking of earlier that day. The praetor of Rome swung his blade down, stepping out of his battle position. He and Piper had been chosen out of their group to go and retrieve the item the bad guys had stolen from them, and it was more than essential that they retrieved it. There was a lot of pressure on them at the moment.

"No, it's not that," said Piper. She pointed a little farther up ahead. There it was. Certainly not unguarded. Four of the enemy thugs stood around it, eating some poor animal that might be or might not still be alive. They looked easy to take on.

"I go for the two on the right, you go for the two on the left," whispered Jason. Piper nodded wordlessly and silently dove into the bushes, disappearing into the shadows. Jason stared off in the direction she had left in for a moment, and then set himself to the task at hand. He crept up to the enemies. They were telling stupid war stories instead of guarding the flag, for heavens sake. Jason had to restrain himself from laughing out loud.

In three quick seconds, the enemies were taken care of. Piper kicked a plate of armour away.

"You okay?" Jason asked her, mostly out of protocol.

"I think I stubbed my toe," she informed him.

Jason nodded once.

"Don't you think there should be… more?" Piper asked. Jason looked around. There was no one in sight.

"I think that was it," he said.

"Guess again," said an all-too-familiar voice.

Suddenly, metal bars hidden underneath dead leaves groaned beneath the two demigods. "It's a trap!" Jason realized.

"So now he realizes it," said the same person. Piper and Jason tried to sprint out to safety, but the metal caging underneath them caught and snapped upright in all directions, forming a metal cage, swinging them three feet in the air.

Well, they walked right into that one.

The mastermind behind everything came into view. He held a remote with two single buttons on it in his right hand, probably for cage instructions CATCH and DROP. He bore small bags underneath each eye, as if he didn't get much sleep, and his sword stood awkwardly at his side, sort of just hanging there without a purpose. His mess of curly brown hair was even crazier than usual, and he wore a triumphant grin on his face that Jason knew people wore when they thought they had just won something.

And of course, Jason recognized him immediately.

"You traitor!" yelled Piper, trying to grab at the metal bars encaging her to pull them apart.

"Keep trying that," Leo Valdez told her calmly, placing his remote down next to the prize. "I'm sure you'll get out in about a hundred years."

Piper closed her eyes and forced herself to calm down enough so that she could actually think straight. "Leo, don't do this," she said, and Jason could sense the charmspeak in her voice as clear as a robin singing in the morning.

"Why shouldn't I?" he taunted back, ignoring her voice. He had heard Piper's charmspeak voice hundreds of times, and was unaffected by most of it now. "You've never really cared about me anyway."

"Leo, that isn't true," Piper told him. She tapped the back of Jason's hand inconspicuously, and he realized what she wanted him to do. Slowly and unnoticeably, he manipulated the wind to sweep the remote toward them.

"Really? Is that why I work eighteen hours a day, trying to finish some stupid ship I've gotta have ready for two freaking months?" Leo asked Piper, oblivious to what Jason was doing.

Piper pursed her lips, not knowing how to respond. "That has nothing to do with us not caring for you," she decided.

"Okay, maybe not," said Leo. "But it's still true. And maybe for once I don't want people to think of me as Repair Boy but as Leo Valdez."

"But why do you have to do _this?" _asked Piper, rattling the cage bars.

Leo grinned again. "Because being evil is fun," he replied. He turned back to what the pair had come for to realize that it wasn't there.

"What—?"

"Didn't anyone tell you that the bad guys always lose?" asked Piper, just as Jason snatched the remote from the air. He pressed the DROP button and he and Piper fell tumbling to the ground.

Piper easily knocked Leo over onto the grass as Jason grabbed the prize from its resting place and ran away. After snatching Leo's sword (not that he could use it anyway), Piper sprinted to catch up.

"And Cabin One wins!" yelled Chiron as Jason ran over the Capture the Flag boundary with the opposite team's flag trailing behind him, signalling the end of the game. "Again…" he added silently to himself.

**-o-O-o-**

Piper and Jason found Leo at Bunker 9 shortly after the game.

"What are you doing here?" asked Piper, ducking under a delicate and dangerous looking machine to get to where Leo was working. He was scribbling furiously on a blueprint; erasing and changing and adding extra things as he finished what seemed to be his seventh cup of coffee.

"Working," he replied without looking up. All his helpers had already gone to bed, so he was the only one running at the time. A damp light shone over his work dimly, so that sore shadows were etched clearly across his face. Piper swore she could have seen a gray hair somewhere in the mess of brown.

"You work too much," she told him playfully, messing up Leo's hair furthermore. The mechanic slapped her hand away exasperatedly, and both Piper and Jason knew immediately that Leo was not in the mood for games, which was one of those once-in-six-months emotions.

"Two hours I spent playing that stupid game," he muttered loud enough so that they could hear. "Two hours I could have spent working on the Argo II wasted. Do you know how much I could have finished in two hours? Not a lot, but something productive, at least. I can't believe you talked me into doing it, Piper." Leo propped his elbows on the desk and rubbed the sleep from his sore eyelids.

"He's just a sore loser," Jason told Piper. But even he couldn't really shed some light onto the situation.

No one spoke for a minute, until Piper said, "Back at the Capture the Flag game, you said that no one cared for you. Is that really how you feel?"

"Nah," said Leo, setting his mind back to the task at hand once again. "I just said that because it sounded evil and spooky and would get you guys on your nerves."

"Really, Leo," said Piper.

Leo sighed and pushed himself away from his desk. "Look, guys," he said. "I've got two months before summer comes, and then it's off to save the world. Argo is only two-thirds finished. I need all the time I've got to finish this, and you trying to help my social issues isn't helping. So I recommend you guys just leave. It's late anyway."

"But do we really think of you only as Repair Boy rather than of Leo?" asked Piper. Jason was amazed at how much she cared for her friend.

"You guys are the best friends I've ever had," Leo said. "But even now…you guys are together…and I'm sort of the third wheel…"

Piper made a pouty-baby face and hugged Leo. "We're sorry if we act like that, Leo," she said. "And if there's anything we can do to help, we'll try."

"Yeah," added Jason.

"You guys did enough with the engine problem," said Leo, referring to the 'incident' back during Christmas. (Long story. It involved a table, a deadline for an explosion, and high-on-eggnog cute girls.)

"That was a long time ago," said Piper.

"Well…" Leo thought about it. "I need help decorating the main foyer. And I've still gotta install the oars and make most of the control buttons work…ugh, I'm going to have to improvise with Wii remotes now…"

"We'll help," said Piper.

"Thanks, guys," said Leo. He rubbed his eyes with the heel of his palms. "I think I have to call it a night," he said. "Buford!" he called. The table quickly rolled over. "Can you put these away?" he asked, gesturing the empty coffee cups. Buford nodded the best a table can nod and Piper helped Leo stack them on top of him so that Buford could wheel them away.

"You don't have to help that much," Leo said, turning off the table lamp and getting up. "I'm sure if I put in an extra three hours every night for two weeks I can get the controls working, and—"

"Don't worry about it," said Jason.

"Yeah," said Piper, grinning. "This is what friends are for."

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